I think any term that relies on knowledge of an obscure, 43 year old, pre-Windows PC game is not a particularly informative term to the vast majority of gamers.

okay you definitely win nerdiest for arguing about what constitutes nerdiest

One thing I’ve learned over the years: gamers, games media, and the games industry are really really really bad at naming categories of games.

I agree its bad storytelling, but I also don’t think storytelling is what they’re going for. The only real story in Elden Ring is the story of your journey as the player.

That is a great point.

Yea the difficulty is overstated. It’s a narrative that serves as a catchy media hook, but has never felt totally true.

Not against easy modes, but strong disagree that there arent challenge levels in other media. David Lynch movies arent going to fly out of your player, but most people aren’t going make it through Eraserhead.

Look, the only bigger cliche than complaining about how bad The AVClub’s taste has become is complaining about how bad Super Bowl commercials are.

And I can even remember a time when our pop culture websites knew the difference between terrible commercials and the best commercials.

Yea, if you’re trying to convince Harry Potter fans to become allies for trans rights, it’s probably not the best strategy to troll them and try and ruin their $70 purchase.

Yea exactly these superhero movie runtime are getting insane. I'm not made of time.

Yea I think there are a lot of cis people that think the best way to defend Trans rights is to be as aggressive as possible to transphobes on Twitter.

“the argument is over whether his achievements in the medium elevate his opinion over a layperson’s”

Yes but it's getting foggier

Yea this. The trans people I know have experienced much worse than being excluded from the definition of feminism. If you really think that’s the worst kind of anti-trans bigotry out there, I recommend that you get to know a trans person and ask them how concerned they are about Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism vs…

Agreed she can’t be openly gay in Siciily, and that’s what I mean by confused and desperate. She knows she’s gay, but she has no idea how to be gay due to her repressive circumstances. Which is leading her down this manipulative, fumbling path.

Strong disagree that anything seen in a next episode trailer is “clear as it gets” especially something coming from Mike White, who loves subverting easy tropes and murky motivations. And it makes sense that his dad, an full on misogynist sex addict, would view anything other than his own way of life as “an act”.

I had the same thoughts about her turning into Armond, but I think White is showing a different side of the same coin, and a more sympathetic one.

I don’t think it was a classic nice guy act. I think White was leading us in that direction, and then moved past the trope into something more realistic and complicated. Albie never acted angry towards her, and they both mutually parted on a positive note, despite also showing some mutual pettiness at the bar.

Yeeeap. And given Hollywood’s love of Hollywood, Wonder Man will win at least one Emmy and Golden Globe.